Dark Princess
by CrimsonTears1
Summary: Kalina is a little elf mistaken for Legolas and captured. She eventually turns to the dark side, having lost her memory, and joins a band of raiders. What happens when one of the prisoners taken on the raids helps her remember what should be forgotten?
1. Prolouge

It was a quiet night in Mirkwood, and Kalina, the visiting 108-year-old noble from Lothlorien, and a relative of Galadriel, was outside playing hide-and-go-seek with Mirkwood's prince. She had stolen some of Legolas's breeches earlier so she could run more easily. They had developed a special bond in the nine years she had been there. She was an outgoing girl who could care less what anyone thought about her, and she always got her way, from staying up later than was proper for a girl her age to getting extra sweets from the cooks. And right then she didn't feel like being 'it'.  
  
"You're always so mean to me. It's your turn to be it, not mine." She started sniffling, and had almost worked up a tear before the 119-year-old Legolas said, "Fine, I'll be it, Kal. AGAIN." She noticed the stress on the last word, but decided to ignore it. She was instantly happy again, and jumped up and hugged him.  
  
"Thanks Leggi, I knew you would. Now start counting." She ran off into the trees laughing.  
  
"How do I get myself into these situations?" he asked himself. Unknown to them, a man was hidden in the bushes.  
  
"It's the boy's turn to hide, I'll just grab him and run," he muttered.  
  
When Kalina ran into the forest, the man mistook her for the little prince, and grabbed her. Seeing that his captive was going to scream, he pressed a knife to 'his' throat. "Scream, sonny, and it'll be your last." The terrified Kalina went limp, truly believing that the man was going to kill her.  
  
Back in the clearing, a voice called out, "Ready or not, here I come!" Kalina lifted her head. If only she could warn him, but how? The best way to help him would be to go along with the man's little game, and get away from Legolas. HE had a future to be worried over. But then, didn't she?  
  
In an attempt to let the elves know that she was in trouble, she made the man drag her, and she tore apart her silver locket, dropping half of it on the ground. It was her most beloved possession, because it was her last gift from her mother. She was loaded onto a flat on the river, and bound. Worn out with the shock of everything, she fell asleep.  
  
*  
  
Back in the clearing, Legolas was searching through the brush and calling out for Kalina to come out, and that she had won. He went deeper into the forest, and found the tracks Kalina had left. Following them further, he figured out what had happened to her. He ran off for the palace.  
  
"Father, she's been kidnapped! We have to get her back," he said quickly, but it was so quickly that no one could understand him.  
  
"Calm down son, whatever it is, it can't be that terrible. Now where is that pretty little girl that you were playing with? Why don't you both just run along-"  
  
"Father, she's gone. She got kidnapped when we were playing just now." The king's eyes widened. He muttered something that sounded like, "Galadriel will have my hide for this." After a moment he ordered that a search party go out to find her.  
  
"Don't come back until you've found her," was his order. Legolas tried to sneak out with the search party, but didn't make it, and was escorted back to his father.  
  
"You'll just have to be contented with waiting," his father told him when he was brought back. He did wait. He waited for days. Days turned into months, and months into years. Years into decades, and decades into centuries. The only thing the search party found was half of the locket, which he wore around his neck until a century after she had disappeared. He half-forgot about her after that, but was reminded of her every time he looked at his dresser, where her half-locket lay. Sometimes he wondered what happened to her, that is, when he wasn't absorbed with the crowd of girls that follow after him always.  
  
*  
  
In an underground cavern, far from Mirkwood, a pale, weak, thin Kalina looked up through the bars in the ceiling of the mud hole she'd been in for so long. She couldn't see anything, for it was pitch black. It had always been pitch black; as far back as she could remember. So long, so long and they still haven't found me. I lost track of the years a long time ago, not that I was ever really sure that I was correct in my time-keeping anyways. You can't tell time down here in this hole. She sighed, thinking of the only way out- surrendering her memory to self-proclaimed magicians who would probably kill her. She stroked her hair. It was extremely long, she could wrap it around her ever-shrunken waist many times. The men had only allowed her to cut her hair eight times, so it was still very long. How old am I? she thought. It seems as if I have been down here forever, and all of the ages have passed me by. Well, that's enough waiting for me. The elves will never find me here, anyway. She shuddered to think of all the things the humans had done to her to try to make her submit to their will. Well, it had worked. She hoped that they would be happy.  
  
That night:  
  
Kalina was sitting in the middle of a large candlelit circle of 'priests' and 'priestesses'. They had taken her necklace, her old dress, everything that reminded her of her old life. They had given her a new, clean dress, and she had washed and had her hair cut. She felt so much better. The priests started chanting, and suddenly her mind became blurry. She tried desperately to remember anything from her past- Lothlorien, Mirkwood, elves, her old life, her father, her deceased mother, Legolas, his father, anything. It all became foggy. All she knew was what the enchanting voice above her said.  
  
"What are you thinking of? There is no such thing as Mirkwood, or Lothlorien, or your father, or that little prince. The only world that exists is Bedis. The only people that exist are the warriors of the Bedism. Your name is not Kalina. What kind of a silly name is that? Your name is Kaie. Now Kaie, forget your silly little stories." Kalina didn't realize that she was being brainwashed, but no one that is being brainwashed realizes it. The priestess stood towering above Kalina. "Now Kaie, go follow to the good servant to your room. You will begin your archery and sword lessons tomorrow." Kalina stood, looking as if she was in a trance (but of course, she was). She went to her room silently, and as soon as she hit her bed, she fell into the first real sleep that she had had in over a thousand years.  
  
*  
  
Back in Mirkwood, Legolas sat up with a jerk. He looked around to see if something was wrong, but found nothing, and went back to sleep with troubled dreams.  
  
*  
  
A/N: Please review, I beg of you. 


	2. Chapter 1

It had been a stormy night when the priests had fought. They all killed each other, successfully eliminating their race. After that, Kalina, or rather, Kaie had taken over. She had ruled the people of Bedis for about 950 years, but she couldn't really tell how old she was since she didn't know how old she had been when she had lost her memory. She could only vaguely remember the night it happened. The priests, however, had put her memory piece in an unbreakable container that could only be opened after she had completed a certain task. She never found out what exactly it was, though. It had become looser recently. She hoped that she would be able to get it open soon, for she was tiring of killing people and raiding places. Tonight's raid was different from all of the others she had gone on. It was on an outpost of Mirkwood, which had greatly expanded in the last few hundred years.  
  
The was planned to start a few hours after sunset. Kaie had the worst feeling about this raid, although she could see no way that it was different from any other she had ever fought at, except they would be fighting elves instead of men. Maybe that was what was bothering her. Elves, like herself, were not meant to die. It was against. everything. Trying to shove that thought away from her consciousness, she turned back to the men that she had picked to come with her that night. They were her best, although she had doubts on whether or not they would be able to fight the elves and win. She decided before she had announced this raid that if they couldn't beat them and all of her men died, it would be their own fault. They had all been pushing to fight the elves forever, thinking that she wouldn't fight against elves because she was an elf. No, that was far from the reason. Kaie wanted to kill every elf on the face of Middle Earth for what had happened to her. She usually only lead raids against men because they were easier to defeat. Tonight was going to be a challenge.  
  
She lead her men through of one of the many tunnels leading from the Great Hall. The tunnel they were in surfaced a few miles from Gardienia, the outpost farthest from Mirkwood. After a few hours of walking they reached the surface. From the position of the moon Kaie could tell that they had an hour and a half to get into their attack positions to be on schedule. They covered the miles between the tunnel entrance and Gardienia in enough time so that they did not have to rush into their attack positions and risk discovery.  
  
*****  
  
Inside of Gardienia, in a mansion on a hill, Legolas and his best frineds Celthir, Reafsher, and Gethar sat around a large table, feasting.  
  
"Hey, do you remember those stories that came around here last year when the group from Lothlorien visited? About that elf-girl that lead a bag of warriors who raid places? And they had won a battle against Gondor? " asked Reafsher.  
  
"Yes, I do. Does anyone really think an elf-girl could lead a band of warriors? I don't. They would probably kill her," Gethar said. Celthir nodded his agreement of Gethar's comment. Gethar continued,  
  
"Do you know Gondor has a large reward on her head? Does anyone even know an elf that could lead a band of humans like that? There hasn't been a girl that I ever knew that could do that."  
  
"Me neither," was the instantaneous response from Reafsher and Celthir. Legolas was about to respond the same when a memory popped into his head of a friend lost long ago.  
  
'Actually, I did. But she's dead now,' is what he wanted to say, but didn't.  
  
Legolas picked up some grapes and popped one into his mouth, then nearly choked on it as Gethar continued.  
  
"I hear the elf-girl's name is Kaie."  
  
Legolas jumped at the sound of the name. Kaie? Kalina? The pieces just didn't fit. Kalina was dead. But she was the only person he had ever known that could be capable of pulling something like that off. He sighed, not noticing that his friends stop talking and were staring at him. After so long, he thought, I still have trouble believing that she is dead.  
  
"I don't think that any person could do that," Celthir commented.  
  
Just after he had spoken those words then the alarm bell rang. Legolas ran to the armory in the house and grabbed his bow and quiver, along with two knifes and a sword for close combat as Gethar and Reafsher were doing. But while they ran for the battlefield he ran into his bedroom and grabbed Kalina's half-locket and shoved it into his pocket. Then he went outside, flying down the path that Reafsher and Gethar took moments earlier. Celthir had headed towards the healing house, a place that Legolas hoped he wouldn't have to visit in the near future. Who could be attacking us? he thought.  
  
He finally reached the battlefield, and was surprised to see that the attackers were merely men, but that they fought like nothing he had ever seen before. He started fighting on the outside, and was going to work his way into the center. In a moment of safety, he looked around to see where Gethar and Reafsher were. He found Reafsher just in time to see him killed by one of the men. Gethar had obviously seen it too, because he rushed over to where Reafsher's killer stood and started to attack him. Legolas ran over to try to help Gethar, the fact that they were fighting on the other side of the field not mattering to him in his rage. He reached Gethar in time to see him slain by the same person. Legolas swung at the person with his sword, but was expertly blocked. The force of his blow knocked the person's hood off, and he could now see it was a woman's face. She swung at him, and he blocked her swing- barely.  
  
"Well, Kaie, I believe that the reward on your head will finally have to be paid," he informed her, an evil glint in his eye.  
  
"No," she snapped back, "it never will." And with that said she brought a crushing blow down on his side from the flat of her sword. He fell to the ground, waiting for the death blow. All he felt was his sword being jerked away from him, then blackness.  
  
*****  
  
After Kaie knocked him out, she dropped her sword and replaced it with his, and then tied him up. She had no idea who this elf was, but she knew that he was wearing the crest of a noble family and would be worth something to the people of Mirkwood, if not her. She dragged him to just inside of the forest, but far away from the fighting, and left him with some guards that were there. She ran back to the battlefield to find it mostly emptied, the fight being over. She sighed, but gathered her men back together. She could see that there had been many injuries but only a few casualties. They had won the fight. They met up with the raid group, who had made out exceptionally well when all of the fighters had left the city to defend it. They made the long journey back down to the tunnel, and then began the journey to the Great Hall.  
  
*****  
  
"Where am I going?" was the first question Legolas asked when the march started. One of his guards told him that they were headed to the Great Hall, and that he had better be prepared to walk, because it was a long walk. When he asked how long, the guard told him that it should take about five hours.  
  
"Who are you people?"  
  
"We are the people of Bedis," the guard stated proudly, but after seeing the look of confusion on Legolas's face, he added, "you might know us as Kaie's raiders."  
  
"Kaie never takes prisoners," he told the guard. When he said that, the guard had looked at him as if he was stupid.  
  
"Well, she does now. I don't know what's so special about you, but-" the guard stopped short. "Never mind." Legolas didn't ask anything else for the remainder of the walk.  
  
When they reached the Great Hall, Legolas looked around. He knew somehow that he was the only person that would ever look at those walls and not become one of Kaie's underlings.  
  
*****  
  
They finally reached the Great Hall, and Kaie sighed. It had been an especially long walk because they had so many wounded men. She herself had helped carry some of the men back. The injured were immediately rushed to rooms where they would be treated as the spoilers carried all of the goods to the treasury, to be dispersed later. The others waited for her to give them leave to go, and also to find out what would happen to the prisoner. When she said nothing, the prisoner's guard asked her what to do with the prisoner. Instead of answering him, Kaie turned to the prisoner.  
  
"What do you think we should do with you?"  
  
"If you put me in prison, then I will be rescued by my father's men. If you kill me, I will be avenged. Choose wisely." The answer was given in such a confident manner that it made Kaie want to slap him and feel sorry for him at the same time. She turned to his guard.  
  
"Put him in Cell K."  
  
*****  
  
A/N: Pretty please review? 


	3. Chapter 2

"For the last time, are you sure that you don't want to come with us? As we've told you already, no light ever comes down this hall." The guard's head was over the hole in the ceiling, peering down at him.  
  
"I will not go with you. All of you will suffer terribly when my father finds me." The guard shrugged and walked away from Legolas. He stared up at the fleeting light, willing it to stay. He sat down on the floor of his cell and felt around to see what else was down there with him. Nothing alive, he could tell from the complete silence. His hand touched something very thin and rough, though it felt as if it had been soft once. He grabbed it and started to examine it as well as he could in the utter darkness. It was hair, very, very long hair. Hair that long could only belong to an elf- they must have had another elven prisoner at one point, maybe Kal. He was in a cell that she could have been in at one point or another. There was nothing terrible about the cell except for its complete lack of light. The dirt floor was as smooth as could be expected, and the walls were almost sheer, and reached up about fifteen feet. There was one tiny hole in the top that he had been dropped in through, not that you could see it now. He faintly heard guards' voices. He felt completely and utterly alone.  
  
*****  
  
Kaie was up in her room, brushing her hair. Her box had opened, and it's only content was half of a silver locket. What good that would do in helping her regain her memory she didn't know, but it was good that it was open. She was thinking about the elf again, and it was sure to become an unhealthy habit. He seemed so sure that his father would rescue him, it was almost sad. She had probably hoped that once, as did all of their prisoners. But they all eventually lose hope. She lied down onto her bed and stared at her dirt ceiling. Even after spending two thousand years deep in the earth, she still longed to see the stars. She wondered how the other elf felt, locked up in that room without any light. She couldn't understand how light matter so much to elves but not to humans.  
  
Finally she got up and headed towards the prison. She passed the guards without any inquiries, and she held a finger up to her mouth to let them know not to say anything about her. She walked as quietly as she could up to the cell, and sat cross-legged next to the hole in the floor. After a while her eyes grew used to the darkness and she looked down at the elf, even though she knew she wouldn't be able to see him.  
  
"Why are you watching me?" said a quiet, calm voice down in the cell. If she hadn't had elven hearing, she wouldn't have heard that. So she pretended not to have. He sighed quietly. "Why are you watching me?" he repeated, loud enough for her to hear easily.  
  
"Because I can," she told him quietly.  
  
"Who are you?" he asked her.  
  
She sat quietly for a few minutes, and then responded. "Why does it matter? I don't know who you are."  
  
He was silent for a few minutes. "My name is Legolas, and it does matter who you are."  
  
"I don't know who I am, but most people like to call me Kaie."  
  
"So you're called Kaie," he repeated, "but you don't know who you are?"  
  
"Yes," she said, almost sadly.  
  
"Why didn't you kill me?"  
  
"I didn't kill anyone."  
  
"You killed my friends," he retorted angrily.  
  
"I didn't kill anyone," she informed him angrily, "and neither did my men. They were all under strict orders to harm but not kill anyone, or I would kill them."  
  
"Why's that?" he demanded.  
  
"Elves shouldn't die," she murmured.  
  
"Wonderful insight from a human," he remarked. "You know that elves shouldn't die."  
  
"I'm not completely stupid, you know," she complained. "Just because I'm not like you doesn't mean I'm an idiot."  
  
"I never said that."  
  
"It was implied, you daft little-" she stopped herself. "You are right, you never said that." He chuckled. "Shut up," she grumbled. When he didn't stop laughing, she launched a pebble at his head.  
  
"Hey! That hurt," he informed her.  
  
She made an indignant noise. "And that effects me how?"  
  
"You're right, Master Kaie, it doesn't effect you at all, but this does," and after he said that, he chunked a handful of rocks up at her, most of which hit the ceiling and bounced back onto him.  
  
"That really would have hurt if those rocks had hit me." She guessed he knew better than to ask her how that would effect him. "Are all elves like you?"  
  
"Why do you care?"  
  
"Because I like elves. They're very interesting- when they aren't being mean. Someday I will know everything about them."  
  
"And how do you plan to accomplish that?" he asked her.  
  
"Well, I make you tell me everything about elves."  
  
"Fine then- what do you want to know about elves?"  
  
She almost said everything, but that would have been silly of her. One can't just describe a race of people, besides, there were probably several different kinds of elves. Everything was so complicated. "A story would be nice."  
  
"Have you heard of Luthien?"  
  
"No, tell me about her." He began a long song about Luthien and Beren, the mortal she loved. It was indescribably good, it made Kaie want to cry and laugh and do a million other things at once. She settled for being quiet and listening to the rest of the song. She laid down and stared at the ceiling. Somehow the song seemed familiar, like she had heard it before. She felt herself drifting off to sleep, and fought a losing battle to stay awake. Soon her breathing became steady.  
  
*****  
  
Legolas stopped singing and listened. Kaie had fallen asleep. It was amazing that she knew nothing about elves, even though she had to be close to his age. The thought registered that he had just sung his captor to sleep, causing a soft laugh.  
  
He grew aware of his surroundings again, the magic of the song slowly fading away. He wondered how she could live down here, in these dark tunnels and holes that were occasionally lit with candles. He had thought some parts of the Mirkwood forest were dark, but now that he was in utter darkness, they seemed like some of the brighter places in the world. What he would give for light. He sighed, then laid down in his cell and went to sleep.  
  
*****  
  
A/N: Somebody PLEASE review? 


	4. Sorry, this is just an author's note

Hello, everyone who read this story while we were writing it. and we are very, very sorry, this is just an author's note.  
  
Artemis and I went on an exchange trip to Germany and we just got back. We could continue the story there because- well, we just couldn't. And now we're back home, our luggage was lost in Customs (the disks with the story on it was in the luggage), and I'm mad at Artemis because we both thought that the other one was going to put up a message saying we were gone. The story will be continued soon, though, so sorry. We just have to rewrite everything.  
  
Ducks from flying bricks- We REALLY are sorry!  
  
Artemis- The real reason we couldn't update in Germany was because Selene changed the password and then forgot it. And the password to the AOL account. She is such an I-D-I-O-T. 


End file.
